1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for providing decorative designs on the surfaces of three-dimensional objects. More particularly, the invention concerns a novel method and apparatus for producing a decorative baseball bat by novel sandblasting and anodizing processes.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Baseball, both amateur and professional has long been popular in America and other countries such as Japan. Baseball fans enjoy not only watching the baseball game, but also partake of various types of refreshments sold during the baseball game. Additionally, many fans commemorate their attendance at a baseball game by buying souvenirs including souvenir baseball bats. Accordingly, decorative baseball bats have been sold in baseball parks for many years. Typically, these souvenir baseball bats are decorated with various types of team logos and other decorative art and are manufactured using either silk screen printing, foil stamping and like techniques. These types of decorative baseball bats are also sold in sporting goods stores and similar retail outlets.
One popular prior art souvenir baseball bat has a baseball player's image formed thereon. The image is transferred onto the bat by means of an ink-jet process that sprays the image onto the bat using colored ink. A somewhat similar prior art process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,831,641 issued to Carlson. The Carlson patent discloses a method and apparatus for imprinting high quality images on non-planar surfaces, including the surfaces of various types of three-dimensional articles, such as baseball bats, formed from a number of different types of materials. In accordance with a Carlson method, the non-planar surfaces of the three-dimensional articles are printed using a uniquely modified ink jet image transfer technique. The apparatus disclosed by Carlson includes a modified ink jet plotter coupled with an article positioning apparatus which functions to automatically maintain the surface of the article to be printed within a plane substantially parallel to and slightly spaced apart from the plane within which the ink jet nozzles of the ink jet plotter reside.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,287,221 issued to Pino discloses a baseball bat article that includes a glossy finish coating material and an image-carrying transfer element. The baseball bat has a grip portion, a barrel portion and an intermediate portion interposed between the grip portion and the barrel portion. The glossy finish coating material is applied to the baseball bat to form a glossy finish along the bat length. The image-carrying transfer element is fabricated from a transparent sheet material.
As will be better understood from the description, which follows, the method and apparatus of the present invention enables the simple and inexpensive manufacture of an attractive decorative bat using sandblasting and conventional anodizing processes.